SA Power Networks is telling some customers impacted by December's power blackouts that compensation is not on the way.

Compensation is paid there were 12 hours of continuous blackout, which does not include periods during which repair crews were unable to operate due to bad weather or otherwise.  The legal term for that is "force majeure".  It means some 65,000 SA Power customers will split $19 Million.  But the company is claiming force majeure in the cases of 30,000 other customers.

"We had up to nine hours of time where our crews could not work safely and we're talking about real risk of life and injury," said SA Power Networks spokesperson Paul Roberts to the ABC.  "Our crews couldn't work in very high winds that persisted for a number of hours and in a sense it would be a double, a second penalty to penalise us for times when we couldn't work."

SA Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis is not buying the utility's excuse and is asking the Essential Services Commission to compel SA Power to explain itself.

"Most blackouts occur during storms, most blackouts occur during weather events," said Mr. Koutsantonis.  "To then claim a force majeure event on the basis of not being able to get to the lines, not being able to get (out) to restore power, quite frankly, is unfair on South Australians."